Category: B 737-800

QANTAS, Business Class – Boeing B 737-800: Sydney to Melbourne

Transferring from international to domestic at Sydney

So, it’s 10h34 when my suitcase finally arrives on the belt after having to wait for a solid hour for them to start delivering the bags off QF2 from Heathrow and Singapore. My flight to Melbourne is leaving in 24 minutes.

If you’re connecting onto a domestic flight with QANTAS, the transfer at Sydney airport is really easy. As you exit through immigration turn right and follow the signs marked ‘QANTAS domestic transfer’. Eventually, this will lead you to a small, flat building with ten check-in counters. When I enter, there are two Economy Class and one Business Class counters open. I hand my passport and boarding pass to the check-in agent and she tells me that I’m not going to make it onto the 11 o’clock departure and they’ll have to rebook me. She then tells me the next available flight is not until 21h00 this evening, in more than nine hours – or she could send me via Canberra, even though apparently she can’t really tell me how long the layover in Canberra would be. Yeah, no. So the 21h departure it is. Although she also tells me I could always try and get on an earlier flight once I get to the domestic terminal. There is a flight leaving for Melbourne every thirty minutes.

From check-in I head through security for the airside bus transfer from the international terminal to the domestic terminal on the other side of the airport.

I mean, obviously I’m not too happy about missing my flight in my advanced state of exhaustion, but the complimentary ramp tour is quite nice…

QANTAS domestic Business Class lounge

The entrance to the QANTAS domestic lounge is more or less opposite gate four.

At the entrance I explain my predicament to the receptionist and she tells me she’ll keep an eye on the flights to check for an earlier availability. In the meantime, she suggests I go down to the concourse from time to time and check directly with the gate attendants for any possible openings.

The lounge is enormous, but very busy. It’s basically impossible to take pictures without pestering anybody or getting them in the picture unintentionally. The buffet is quite extensive, with a good selection of cold dishes, soup and one hot dish (some curry with rice, I think). There is also a large coffee bar that seems to be permanently busy during my stay.

I park myself in an armchair by the windows and hope the view will be enough to prevent me from nodding off to sleep. Apparently it’s not. God knows what noises I must have been making, because when I awake an hour later with a start, I get a very bemused look from the people around me. It’s been a long trip, okay? At least I wasn’t drooling…

Eventually, I decide to go for another walkabout to avoid nodding off again. The 16h00 departure at gate 10 is running late, so I figure I might as well try my luck, and… bingo! Seat 2C is available and there is still enough time for my suitcases to be located and loaded onto the aircraft.

Boarding

I very much like that QANTAS has two separate queues for boarding, with premium passengers on the left, and Economy passengers on the right. There is a large box set up in the middle of the queue where passengers can help themselves to complimentary earphones to use during their flight.

Boarding starts at 16h15. In the photo below is the 16h30 departure to Melbourne, which ends up pushing off stand before we do.

At the door passengers are welcomed by two elderly gentlemen. Both of them are very friendly and chatty, making easy conversation with the passengers as they wait to enter the aircraft.

The cabin

QANTAS has a dedicated Business Class cabin with four rows on its B 737-800 fleet. The seats are in a 2 + 2 configuration. The seat pitch is very comfortable. The recline is okay, although for my liking the seat back could be more upright in the neutral position. The headrest is adjustable in height, with foldable ears for better head support. I now know from experience that they work and really do prevent your bonce from rolling about like a little bobble head man.

There are no inflight entertainment screens, but streaming via wifi is available.

The meal

Once we’re airborne, the service starts pretty much as soon as the wheels go up. The flight time is one hour & twelve minutes.

Much to my surprise, there are two meal options. One is a prosciutto salad and the other is a warm leek quiche with onion confit and mashed peas. With that the crew serve sourdough bread with butter. There’s also a Lindor chocolate on the tray.

The meal is good and hits the spot nicely. The presentation of the tray could perhaps be a bit nicer, but then again you’re not eating the tray…

Arrival

We land in darkness and make a short taxi to our stand on the domestic pier. From there it’s just a short walk to the baggage reclaim, where my suitcases arrive just as I reach the delivery belt. And then I make my way to the hotel. I’m a wreck.

Conclusion

I will be spending the next two months in Australia, and I’m really looking forward to the peace and quiet. Before that though, I think it’ll take me a few days to recover from the long journey.

This short domestic hop on QANTAS was an interesting comparison for me, even if I was already very tired by this stage. Two things struck me: first, that there seems to be a bit of a disconnect between QANTAS’ Busines Class product on short-haul and its long-haul First Class product. The First Class product is really not very good, and not up to international standards. In contrast, their domestic Business Class product is very good, even though they’ve more or less cornered the market and needn’t try so hard. As a result, the gap between Business and First didn’t seem that great to me. The second thing that strikes me is that this is the complete opposite of the situation of the European carriers which still offer a First Class. In Europe it’s usually more the case that the First Class product is very good, like my experience with SWISS from Zürich to Singapore, but the gap between First and Business Class is too big, with the latter more like a slightly better Economy class service than a truly premium offering.

Qantas, Business Class – Boeing B 737-800: Townsville to Sydney via Brisbane

Introduction

My time with Professor Bond is a real eye-opener. I think I was able to ask him all the questions for which I was seeking answers. Having said that, he also gave me a lot of answers to questions I wasn’t even aware I had!

Getting to the Airport

The journey to the airport takes about ten minutes by car. After all, it’s still very early and there are hardly any people on the roads.

Check-in

The landside part of the terminal is disproportionately large, compared to the somewhat tight and narrow airside area at the gates.

Each one of the major airlines operating out of Townsville has its own dedicated check-in zone. I can bypass this today, because I’ve already checked in on the QANTAS app.

There is a queue for security, but it moves quickly. Of course it helps that in Australia they only want you to remove your laptop from your bag and not also your toiletries etc.

The Lounge

Once I’m through security, I only have ten minutes before boarding starts. But I’m gagging for a coffee. Much to my surprise and delight, there is actually a fairly large QANTAS lounge, where the baristas will even make you a cappuccino to go!

Boarding

So with my coffee in hand, boarding starts on time with an initial call for Business Class and frequent flyers passengers. It’s only once I settle in my seat that I realise it’s raining quite heavily outside.

The Cabin

QANTAS has a dedicated Business Class cabin on its Boeing B 737-800 fleet. There are three rows of seats in a 2 + 2 configuration, which makes for a total of twelve seats.

Every seat is equipped with its own video screen, an electricity plug and USB port. There is also a footrest that can be raised when the seat is in the recline position.

The wifi on board works surprisingly well.

I think the Americans in particular tend to frown upon the European interpretation of Business Class seating, which basically means blocking the middle seat on a row of bog standard Economy Class seats. Which is, admittedly, pretty lame. But it seems to me that the average sector length in Europe is probably much shorter than in vast countries like the US or Australia, and which therefore hardly warrants the installation of a more comfortable solution with a dedicated Business Class cabin and seat.

The Crew

The maître de is serving the Business Class cabin and I have to say, this guy is really absolutely brilliant. His manners are impeccable! He addresses every passenger by name and no request ever seems too much for him.

The service on the ground consist of a welcome drink. There is a choice of still or sparkling water or apple juice. There are no towels, newspapers or anything.

The flight time is announced at one hour and thirty minutes.

The Meal

Once we’re airborne, the meal service begins. There is a choice of either Quiche Lorraine with bacon or an omelette served with a mushroom sauce, spinach and bacon. I go with the latter option.

The tray comes with two slices of sourdough bread, butter and apricot jam. There’s also some awfully healthy looking packed thingy, which I decide to steer clear of.

Later on, the maître de passes through the cabin offering cranberry muffins that are fresh out of the oven and taste lovely.

To drink with the meal, I have an orange juice, still water and a coffee. Oh yes, the coffee! Full and extra brownie points for QANTAS on the coffee front. Instead of that horrific instant stuff you get on most airlines these days, QANTAS serves a lovely brew made in a coffee press, which just tastes so much better!

Once the tray is removed, the crew pass through the cabin with small bottles of still water and ask passengers if there’s anything else they’d like. I order a Coke Zero and then settle in to read the latest book of the PC Grant series, which my friend the wiry R. and I both find quite entertaining.

Transfer in Brisbane

We land in Brisbane about ten minutes ahead of schedule. I disembark the aircraft through gate number 23. I check on one of the FIDS, only to find that my flight to Sydney in slightly over an hour will be operated by the same aircraft from the same gate.

The glorious beauty of the English language…

Language change is unavoidable. One of the key drivers of language change is exposure of the language as it is used in a specific area to the other languages in use around it. In which case there may be regional approximation of two or more languages coexisting in that region.

Why am I even bothering you with this? In British English a thong refers to a particular type of knickers or underpants. If you look up the term on onelook.com, it will give you as a definition: ‘a piece of underwear or bottom part of a bikini with a very narrow piece of cloth at the back’. So basically, it’s the type of underpants that look as though they need to be surgically removed from your butt crack.

Which makes it all the more hilarious that when I enter the QANTAS lounge during my layover in Brisbane, the lounge dragon will not let me enter because they have ‘a strict no thongs policy’ in the lounge that she’s asking me to respect. Of course, what she’s referring are what we call flip flops in Europe that you wear on your feet.

The Meal

In any case, the only other thing worthwhile mentioning on the next leg to Sydney is that there are three options for lunch: a kale and spinach frittata, fruit salad or a smoked salmon salad. The tray comes with a large tub of blueberry yoghurt on it. The bread is served separately.

Arrival

Our arrival into Sydney is stunning. We approach the city from the north. At some point, we make a gentle left turn for the downwind, which brings us in right over Manly. In the distance I can see the harbour bridge with the opera house and CBD. It just looks so spectacular from above! I shall miss this when I leave again for Europe tomorrow.

Conclusion

I rather enjoyed these two short-haul flights in QANTAS Business Class. My previous experiences with their Business Class product have all been on longer sectors, on which the meal concept was somehow always a bit odd. So it’s good to see that this is not the case here.

To me QANTAS’ biggest selling point are definitely their crews, which are friendly, properly trained and really do represent ‘the spirit of Australia’.